


Hope of Morning

by Nhitori



Category: Sword Art Online
Genre: Multi, No Smut, Retelling, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-06-12 17:35:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15344970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nhitori/pseuds/Nhitori
Summary: When the hope of morning starts to fade in meI don't dare let darkness have its way with meAnd the hope of morning makes me worth the fightI will not be giving in tonightKazuto Kirigaya's never thought much of himself, but when Akihiko Kayaba traps everybody in a world of his own creation, Kirito realizes that there's a way for him to make something of himself; And that's by putting himself on the line to help others, for once in his life.  And somehow, even though none of his skills lie in socialization, he ends up making connections and discovering that sometimes, a worthless person who's trying his best is just what broken people need.[[Rated mature for themes, no smut, gore, or otherwise explicit scenes will be appearing in this fanfiction.]]





	1. Welcome To The World of Swords

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to try my hand at an SAO retelling. So many people when saying how they'd 'fix' SAO change many major plot points. My goal is to follow the anime's major points to craft a whole new story. I'll note I haven't read the light novels, but any additional information not from the anime was gained from the wiki. This is just my attempt at taking this anime which is close to my heart, and giving it my own spin.  
> Featuring such changes (hopefully) as:  
> Kirito feeling less like a 'gary stu'  
> Actions having more tangible consequences  
> Side characters having a bigger presence  
> Distasteful moments being... Less distasteful?
> 
> I hope that you enjoy! I'd really appreciate some comments, they motivate me to keep writing! Also, I don't have many ships personally, so feel free to let me know if there are any you'd appreciate seeing. I plan to go through Ordinal Scale, and maybe do the next arc if it releases in anime form before I'm finished with this project.

Kirito.

That was Kazuto’s username here, and it seemed, that would continue to be his name for quite a while, as Akihiko’s announcement promised. Kirito. He’d have to get used to that.

And that was just before the reality of the situation set in.

Kirito was not the sort of man who should be the most concerned when the game world became his reality. He was good at playing games. Kirito was not the young child, not great at playing but looking for and finding fun to be had, the sort of player who’d die to a low-level mob ten times and laugh it off, now trapped in a situation where dying just once was unacceptable. Kirito was not the poor soul using the virtual world’s character creator to express their true self, now trapped once more in the body they’d been trying to escape. Kirito was not the single mother playing video games to relax for an hour or two while her kids were at school or asleep, now stuck here and leaving those children alone.

Even though Kirito was none of those things, and had no further reason to be bothered by the situation, he was still horrified. Of course he was still horrified, because even without a further reason, anybody and everybody would be scared in this situation. A game world was built with the idea that you could learn from dying and respawning. A game world was built to present certain challenges beyond those of everyday life, challenges that nobody was really prepared to face. A game world, a fantasy world, it was built with what most people would view as unthinkable dangers.

It wasn’t like Kirito had anything really important he was leaving behind in the real world, no reason he really needed to get back. But Kirito didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to die, and this world was dangerous. Much more dangerous than any he’d ever known. But at the same time, as Akihiko presented, it wasn’t like everybody could hole up and hide from those dangers. Towns would always be safe zones, sure, but Akihiko made it clear that wouldn’t really be allowed. Even if the players gave up on clearing the game and escaping the world… The lower floors would start to disappear if they took ‘more than a single year’ to clear the next floor of the game. It seemed like a lot of time, but it was still a motivator.

Kirito looked around at everybody, and he realized that while he was scared, he was leagues behind plenty of the others here. He was by no means a casual gamer, so he at least had that going for him. Not to mention, he _had_ been a beta tester, too. He already had experience in VR and in this world, at least, enough of it to avoid being defeated easily by low level mobs. In beta, he’d died so many times just trying to get the hang of the VR controls. He had to imagine that all of the brand new players would have similar difficulties, though he’d admit that he hadn’t been very cautious in the beta, knowing there wouldn’t be consequences.

With actual consequences in play, people would hopefully be more careful, but there were still plenty of players who couldn’t handle this information.

As he stared, he saw young players looking around in fear, looking for anybody to tell them that they’d be okay. He saw players dropped to their knees, arms wrapped around themselves. Every MMO had players who didn’t do much with combat, people who played just for the crafting, or to roleplay in the towns, things like that. Kirito _was_ somebody who played a lot for the combat in a game. He didn’t want to think of himself as a hero or anything like that, but wouldn’t it be the right thing to do if he took his experience with combat in MMOs, and utilized it here. As afraid as he was, beating the game would require the combined efforts of a number of players. Even just adding one to that number could make the difference.

Kirito would fight, for the sake of these people he saw who couldn’t, who were paralyzed by fear, who simply didn’t have the ability to survive.

Was it an act of nobility?

No, Kirito immediately realized. It wasn’t that at all. It had nothing to do with wanting to protect the helpless or raise himself up on any pedestal. Kirito was a coward and he wasn’t a very noble man. He hardly even tried at anything he’d done in his life. He’d quit kendo, and he nearly dropped out of school, the only things which held his interest were video games and programming. He would never be one in a crowd to jump to emergency response. With stakes this high, he’d run away, but he _could_ do something here, as opposed to anywhere else.

Because somebody did the same for him once.

Somebody stepped up and suffered and put in the work because he wouldn’t.

This wasn’t paying her back at all, she had nothing to do with Aincrad or the world of Sword Art Online. He wasn’t paying her back, but he could pay it forward. It was the least he could do. And with that drive, that newfound motivation, he ran from the town square, back to the field, back to the low-level mob spawners. Klein had disappeared at some point, but Kirito knew he could handle himself, and he had to get a jump on gaining exp. Even though exp was, of course, not a finite resource in an MMO, that would be dumb, he had to get there before the hunting spot got too crowded to one-v-one a mob. He wasn’t the first one here, but there weren’t so many people that it would be fruitless. He recognized one of the others, who was barking out advice to the others who were locked in careful two-on-ones with boars.

“Diavel!” Kirito called out to him as he pulled his sword from its sheath, “Long time no see!”

“Ah, Kirito!” Diavel exclaimed, “Good to see you still around… Not that I’m happy you’re stuck in here, but it’s good to see another beta tester. We have a responsibility to the rest of the players. I’m trying to help some of these newbies get the hang of the combat system.”

“They’re very brave,” Kirito said, nodding to the new players who were battling, “It’s a good idea, to have two people take one mob. Even here on this floor, a boar can take you out if you’re not prepared. Doubling up keeps it on the safe side.”

“If we’re careful about things here,” Diavel said, “Hopefully, we can keep everybody safe in spite of the situation.”

“No,” Kirito’s voice didn’t dip in volume, but became more subdued in his sadness, “That won’t be possible, and you know it. People are always going to do stupid things, or end up getting in over their heads. How much do you want to bet that by the time the sun comes up tomorrow, somebody will die because they aggro’d every boar in this field?”

“I wouldn’t take that bet,” Diavel said, “But if we took shifts, then-”

“We’d need to already have a guild put together to pull off something like that, this field isn’t exactly the only mob spawner on this floor,” Kirito said, “It’s foolish to say that nobody will get hurt, you’ll just get your hopes up for nothing.”

“I understand,” Diavel admitted, “The goal for us beta testers can’t be to use our existing knowledge to prevent any harm, it has to be to mitigate the harm that definitely will happen. This is a crisis situation, there’s no way there won’t be casualties.”

“Now you’re getting it,” Kirito said, his voice shaking a bit, “We could die, too, if we aren’t careful, but… This is something that I have to do. I have to be a good person for once in my life, because this is something I’m actually capable of helping somebody with…”

“You know, Kirito,” Diavel said, raising his shield in Kirito’s direction with a friendly grin, his own target defeated with five minutes till it would respawn, “It’s a shame you were kind of a lone wolf during the beta. I think we would have been good friends. Wanna try starting now? We could work together and try to plan how we’d tackle Illfang, too.”

“I think that you’re more of a leader-type,” Kirito said, “So you’d be better off partying up with new players who need guidance, you know? But I’d be glad to plan strategy with you, and… Well, be your friend too. We all need to stick together in this situation, don’t we?”

“Yeah,” Diavel said with a nervous chuckle, “A lone wolf playing style? That’s a one way ticket to ending up dead. You need to have backup. Maybe not right at your side all the time, but someone you can call for help if you stumble into an ambush. It takes crystals to fast travel to town, but you can fast travel to people on your friends list for free once a week per friend. Don’t hesitate to ask for help if you need it!”

“Same to you…” Kirito said, finishing off his own boar then opening the menu to send Diavel a friend request. Strange enough, he already had one friend listed, in Klein. More than he ever had during the beta, he was already becoming more social. If only it were under better circumstances. Diavel made a show of accepting the friend request, then took up a fighting stance again, ready for the mob to respawn.

Kirito did similarly, running through his knowledge of combat in the beta. It would take about twenty boars to get to level two, and once at level two, the boars would be worth a small bit less experience each, and of course, more experience would be needed to level up. Grinding to a high level while on the first floor was basically impossible. Kirito guessed that the best anyone could do was probably level twenty, and even that would be rough. After twenty, the experience gained per boar would be practically nothing, and the time between level twenty and twenty-one if trying to grind with level one monsters, or even with the level eights that this floor went up to, would be boring, trudging months.

And that was assuming that the curve wasn’t any harsher than it had been in beta, now that the game was live and also a death trap. Kirito already knew from the release information that all notable locations have been shuffled from beta; The boss’s locations within the labyrinths were different, and while the most basic of mob spawners remained in place, all of the more interesting ones were moved. Kirito remembered that there was one spawner for level nine man-eating plants on the first floor, hidden in the top, greenhouse-like floor of a tall tower. He assumed that was now elsewhere. Likewise, though towns too were the same as ever, all trap rooms and treasure rooms were completely rearranged.

That was the only information he’d been told was different from the beta, though, so until proven otherwise he would assume that everything else was still the same.

“Oh, one more thing, Kirito,” Diavel said, “I’ve had us in PM this whole time for a good reason. It’s probably for the best that you don’t let anyone know you were a beta tester, okay?”

“Why?” Kirito couldn’t help but ask.

“I told these newbies here that I’ve just played a lot of nervegear demos, which is why I’m used to the controls. There’s already been some beta testers who’ve run off to better farming spots. I even heard a few saying they want to speedrun their way to Tolbana, instead of sticking around to help or anything,” Diavel explained, “So people hearing about that won’t really be fond of beta testers. We’ll be more helpful if we keep our identities hidden.”

“That’s fair,” Kirito said, “But, really, speedrunning to Tolbana? Isn’t it smarter to go to Horunka first and get some quests done? Speedrunning in a death game…”

“Right? How dumb can you get?” Diavel asked, “I want to play it safe. So, you’re planning to go to Horunka next?”

“I am,” Kirito said, “I guess most of the beta testers think of it like a small fry village by now, though… I just want to hit level three before I start to go north.”

“I’ll start making my way out that way, once I’ve got a suitable party to take along with me,” Diavel said, “So you might have moved on by the time I get up there.”

“Depends on how many quests I can get,” Kirito said, “I might end up staying there two or three weeks, so I can finish all the quests there. Even if I just get the trash tier rewards from all of them, it’s still cor if nothing else.”

“Right, a lot of the quests are only offered one day a week,” Diavel noted, “And isn’t there that one quest you can get, that gives you an entire stack of fresh cream even at trash tier?”

“Yeah,” Kirito said, then hesitated a moment and opened his inventory, finding a full stack of ‘cracker ration’ there. Right, that was part of the starting pack. In the beta, he’d wondered why they’d been given so much of an item that didn’t recover hp, wasn’t worth any cor, and gave such a weak ‘defense plus one for five minutes’ buff. He pulled one from the stack and watched it appear in his hand, then stuffed it into his mouth quickly, since the boar could respawn at any minute.

In fact, when he glanced back to Diavel, his mob had already respawned. Kirito got ready, and his did as well. Once they were both fighting, Diavel spoke again, “What’s with the ration? You really need the one defense it gives you?”

“No,” Kirito said, “I think that hunger’s a real mechanic now. I was feeling hungry, I ate a ration, and now I’m not hungry. It explains why such a useless item would be in the starter kit, right? And since this game is overriding all of our real life stimulation, it goes to reason that feeling hungry here is actually part of the game and we need to eat.”

“Oh, that’s fair,” Diavel said, then exited the PM for a moment to call out to his charges, “Hey! If you guys get hungry, make sure to eat something! Your inventories come with a full stack of ninety-nine cracker rations, and there’s plenty of food in town that’s sold for under ten cor! Kirito here let me know that hunger might be an actual mechanic now, and I don’t want any of you to starve!”

“Good thinking,” Kirito said once Diavel turned the private conversation back on. That was one thing that made the gameplay different from reality, eavesdropping could be easily avoided through whisper functions, “In a game like this… Dying of starvation would be the worst way to go out. When you could get killed by a monster or even another player at any turn, not eating and letting yourself die that way…”

“I don’t think anyone will really let that happen,” Diavel said, “It isn’t like getting something to eat is difficult, and people will eat when they’re hungry.”

“I guess you’re right,” Kirito said, “But you still felt the need to point it out to the new players.”

“Maybe I’m just a little bit worried,” Diavel admitted.

And with that, though they left the private message open, Kirito and Diavel had nothing left to speak to each other about. They fought boars for hours, Diavel’s pupils cycling through as some moved on to wolves or went back to town, and others arrived. Kirito didn’t see Klein, but remembered that Klein’s plan had been to party up with some friends, and assumed that the group would rather farm level two or three creatures, considering there was power in numbers. Not to mention, there were other level one spawners in other areas around the town of beginnings, and there were only about ten thousand players in the game. It wasn’t unreasonable to think there were players that Kirito would never even see again, so it was a good thing he’d taken the time to add Klein as a friend.

Eventually, after about four batches of players that Diavel taught the ropes, Kirito and Diavel were both level two, approaching three, and so exhausted they could hardly swing their swords anymore. That was when Diavel spoke again, “It seems hunger is not the only physical need that has to be cared for here…”

“I’m sure there’s an inn back at the Town of Beginnings,” Kirito said, then sheathed his sword and started to walk back toward town. Diavel followed after him, but kept his weapon out in case they aggro’d anything on the way back. Immediately after crossing town lines, Diavel sheathed his weapon, then checked the map. This town was roughly the size of a district in Tokyo, and boasted that it could house just over five thousand players… Which was half of the game’s entire player base, and that was counting the great number of player houses and other buildings available for purchase.

Kirito somehow doubted he’d find a room at an inn, but he checked his inventory. He had the starter cor, and a number of boar tusks which would sell to NPCs for about ten cor each. He could afford to rent a room from an NPC for one night, right? Though he’d always logged out to go to sleep in the beta, he knew that sleeping in private was important for one’s safety. He didn’t want to think that player killers would still be up to their usual ways in a circumstance like this, but in his heart he knew he couldn’t believe that.

“I’m going to try and rent a room from an NPC,” Kirito told Diavel, “You can try the inn if you want, I just figure I may as well blow a little extra cor so that somebody else doesn’t have to.”

“Oh, I’ll do the same…” Diavel said, trailing off at the end of his statement, then bolted down an alley. Kirito stood in shock for just a second before he took off after his friend, pushing off with one palm against the brick on his right side. He stumbled out on the opposite end and his brain processed every part of the scene separately.

The insufficient little stone wall that stood between the Town of Beginnings and the edge of Aincrad, that drop into absolutely nowhere. The girl in beginner’s gear, with peachy hair all the way to her waist. Diavel’s hand around a wrist. Tugging, pulling the girl from that wall and dropping her to the cobbled path on this side of the pathetic wall. Her health bar appeared just for a moment as the impact dropped her a few measly points. The name above her health bar, Asuna. And then it was gone.

Sword Art’s UI was such that player names usually only appeared when HP decreased, and the bar was shown as well. This was to avoid clutter, and for no other reason. Kirito stared on as Diavel’s lips moved but no sound came out, obviously in a private message with this Asuna girl as he crouched awkwardly beside her, and she didn’t move from where she lay on her back in the path, staring up at the false sky that the next floor up displayed on its underside.

Kirito just waited. It was a long while of silent conversation between the two before Asuna picked herself up off the floor and simply walked away, arms around herself as she kept going.

“What… Was that about?” Kirito asked, fearing the answer as Diavel turned to look at him with sad eyes.

“People are already dying,” Diavel explained, crossing his arms over his chest, “It’s like Kayaba made it easy for them, with how short this wall is. Some people are just too scared to even try… I don’t blame them for it, though.”

“What about her, then?” Kirito asked, “She didn’t seem hard to convince.”

“I told her if she was going to die here, she should go down fighting. Make something of herself now that she had the chance,” Diavel said, “But, at least with her, I’ve actually met her in the real world. I admitted to her that I was a beta tester, because all _she_ really needed was to be told about the morality code. Do what you will with that information. It was just luck, that I’m the one who saw her, though. I could never have talked down anybody else.”

“And that’s all you’ll tell me, right?” Kirito asked, and Diavel nodded, “Yeah, that makes sense. You want to protect her privacy.”

“Exactly,” Diavel said, then looked down the path, “Well, I suppose… You and I should part ways for now, shouldn’t we? I’ll let you get some sleep. I’ll see you soon, though, Kirito.”

“I’ll see you soon,” Kirito said, noting that Diavel’s mood had seriously dropped as the reality of the situation really set in, learning that there had been players committing suicide, overwhelmed by the weight of it all on day one. People who didn’t even want to give it a shot in such a dangerous world.

Kirito could imagine that it was just a trigger for underlying issues. The morality code… Kirito knew all about that, too, and he hated to think what sort of issue that code could work to reassure someone about. No wonder Diavel was reeling now. Kirito was too. There was proof already that people were dying in-game, not just because the consoles were removed. Even though he would probably never see Asuna again, she stuck in his mind too, because he’d almost had to see her die. Or, worse. He was almost right there without even knowing that she could have died. Diavel spotted her, not him. Whoever she was as a person, she’d nearly given up and died. He tried to push those thoughts out of his mind, though, and went to find one of the NPC houses flagged as having a room available to rent. And he knocked on the door.

It was easy to get the room, Kirito paid upfront and had a green player marker. This particular NPC also insisted on giving him a bite to eat before he went to bed, as ‘two meals were included in the overnight rate’. So he had breakfast to look forward to as well. He went up to the room, utilized the door’s UI to lock it for outside players for his safety, then lay down.

He was grateful for how exhausted he was, because he could go to sleep without thinking about the suicides, or players who might starve, or Asuna and the fact that the morality code was a matter of life and death to her, somehow. He just fell into another world within a world, the world of dreams.

And usually, Kirito would not remember his dreams, but he remembered this one. He remembered this one because he was prematurely woken up. It wasn’t much of a dream, honestly it was a rather annoying one. Kirito simply dreamed that he was grinding more boars, this time with Klein and Asuna present in addition to Diavel, but not much different from what he’d been doing for hours before he went to sleep. What woke him up was a voice he’d never heard before.

“Kirito!” A young woman’s voice cut through the dream and woke him with a start. He sat up to see a girl a few years older than him, standing in his room with a dark and heavy cloak around her shoulders, but her face was fully visible. She had short, tufty brown hair cropped to her ears, and equally dark eyes. A rather normal-looking teen, except that she had that cloak, equipment that she shouldn’t have been able to afford yet… And she was in Kirito’s room.

“Gah, what the Hell…?” Kirito questioned along with his start awake, then noticed that the girl had her UI open, holding down the button to display her name. Argo. Kirito knew who that was, though he’d never met her during the beta, “Wait, you’re Argo the Rat?”

“Yeah,” Argo said, releasing her UI. She pointed at the window, “Anyway, you need to lock the windows to outside players too when you rent a room, they only auto-lock at inns.”

“So that’s _how_ you got here,” Kirito observed, “But why?”

“I heard through the grapevine that you were gonna go to Horunka,” Argo said, “I have ears everywhere. Anyway, Horunka has a printing press shop. I want to go there. I’m not going to be an idiot and run off alone… So I want you to take me. Now I know, you were a lone wolf back in the beta and all, but why don’t you play nice with me? I’ll even sweeten the pot. Nobody’s bothered going to that village yet, and the first person to take the Forest Medicine Quest has guaranteed top tier rewards…”

“Wait,” Kirito said, blinking the sleep from his eyes, “If I got there first, then I’ll be guaranteed the Anneal Blade?”

“Well, if you can complete the quest,” Argo clarified, “The mob that drops the quest item only has a one percent of spawning, so as soon as anyone else is trying to do the quest, the odds of actually completing it go way down. It’s also a level three mob, but it spawns in clusters, so the recommended level for the quest is five…”

"That is a bit of a challenge," Kirito said.

"But you like challenges, don't you, Kirito?" Argo asked, pulling the hood on her cloak back over her head, "I'll help you, too. All mobs drop trash you can sell for cor, after all. And some cor of their own, which I think gets duped to everyone in a party. Plus, it's EXP. So, I can't see any reason I wouldn't help you grind for the quest item, since I'm asking you a favor to take me there."

"...Yeah, we can do it," Kirito said. Had Klein not disappeared back at the plaza, he would have offered to take him along to the next village anyway. Going by himself, he would have wanted to hit level three before setting off, but with Argo as backup... She was a beta tester too, after all, and as far as Kirito knew she'd gotten further than him last time around. After all, she'd started selling information for the ninth floor when he'd just reached the fifth. He wondered if she'd been doing that now, and that was how she afforded the cloak.

It was a bit sketchy, wasn't it, that Argo would be taking cor from new players like that? They had other things to be using their money on, but Kirito supposed that if they really wanted to pay for information, that was what Argo did. Just because she was doing it in early-game didn't make her any worse than any other information broker, in-game or in reality.

"What's the defense rating on that cloak?" He asked her, before she even got the chance to respond to his agreeing to take her to the next village, "And... Why me? Why not find a whole party that you could just ask to go there? It can't just be because I was already planning to go that direction."

"Mm, you're right," Argo said with a small shrug of her shoulders, "I could have, but the thing is, with you? I know that I won't have to carry you. And I know that we both know the importance of running if we get in over our heads. I'm not asking you to be my friend or to carry me or anything like that. The easiest way to get to Horunka when under-leveled is two people. We can be stealthy, but still look out for each other in an emergency. Oh, and my cloak is fifteen defense. A whole ten more than any default armor piece, but I'm wearing it on top of them."  
"Sturdy," Kirito said, "And you're being smart about getting there, too. But can I ask why you want to make it there? I would think you'd want to get to the labyrinth."

"Why would I want to go there?" Argo asked, "I've been up to floor ten. I have something I want to... No, something I have to do, with the printing press in Horunka. Hopefully, helping you with the quest will win me enough money to do what I have to. It's a cheap service, since most people think it doesn't have much use outside of memes."

"Well, I don't know what it is that you have to do," Kirito said, "But, I'll help you. Now, can I go back to sleep?"

"Yeah, no problem," Argo said, then stepped over to the window and applied the 'lock outside players' command that Kirito had neglected to let her get in here in the first place, "I'm going to sleep on the floor, okay? It's too late for me to find a room anywhere else, and I trust you won't do anything while I'm sleeping."

"Argo, you do know about the morality code, right?" Kirito questioned, "Even if I somehow wanted to-"

"Idiot," Argo rolled her eyes, "I meant, like PK. You know there's a way to do it in safe zones. Obviously I know about the morality code, good grief. I'm an info broker. Anyway, goodnight Kirito."

"Goodnight, Argo," Kirito said, and returned to sleep.

\---

The next morning, the kind NPC who rented Kirito the room fed him breakfast. Argo left through the window, not leaving a single trace that she'd been there, then met back up with him out on the street once he'd left the building. This part of town wasn't especially busy, even as people were waking up and setting out for the day. Argo grabbed him by the upper arm, a clamp-like grip that betrayed no sentiment or care for him as a person.

"To get to Horunka, we have to go Northwest... To get to that exit of the city, we'll have to go through the most heavily populated areas," Argo said, "Or, we would, but I don't have time to push through crowds and turn down NPC merchants all day long."

"So what are you thinking of doing instead?" Kirito asked, knowing that Argo would have some sort of clever plan.

"Well, how's your balance?" Argo asked, dragging him down the path, "If we walk along the wall, we can bypass everything. There's just a few areas where they would only be buildings to our left, instead of a floor. It's pretty wide, though. It shouldn't be hard to keep your balance while walking along it."

"I can do that," Kirito said, then hesitated a moment, though Argo was still dragging him he stopped keeping up as well. Asuna... And what Diavel said, what she would have told him in those private messages. People had been dying there. People were dead, "But, are you sure you want to-"

"Oh, you mean with the suicides?" Argo asked, jerking his arm forward, "Don't be getting sentimental on me, Kirito. You've always been a solo player, so what should it matter to you if you walk on the same wall some people jumped off of? You've probably done it with bridges in real life without even thinking of it."

"I guess you're right..." Kirito admitted, continuing along with her, "But, don't you _ever_ think about the implications of the things that you do?"

"Of course I think about them," Argo said, "The thing is, I just don't care. Neither should you. We're living in a cutthroat world now... It's not every man for himself, but we shouldn't be caring about others so much that we think it's in bad taste just to stand where a dead person stood."

"Whatever you say," Kirito said, and followed Argo along the wall. They took their time for safety's sake, but moved comparatively quickly, and reached the exit much sooner than they would have had they taken the conventional route through the city. Kirito hated to admit it, but Argo was right. This was the better way to go.

Making the actual, physical trip to Horunka wasn't especially difficult. Kirito and Argo were both familiar with the best route to avoid too many mob encounters, the distance at which aggro dropped, and the mob encounters they could afford to fight through. By the time they arrived, Argo had leveled up to three, and Kirito had done that and made it a good way toward four, which made the quest waiting for him in the village seem less daunting.

Upon their arrival to the village, both of them had their hit points automatically restored, a function that every low-level floor had, up until floor five, at which point it was assumed that any player could afford their own healing, or just to use the floor warps to go back to the lower floor if they were really broke.

The forest this quest was in was a little ways out from the town, though, which would make it incredibly tedious to go back and forth after each and every cluster of little nepenthes. Kirito would have to find some way to level a little more before he did it... But the first step was actually taking the quest, so he'd be guaranteed the anneal blade if he actually was able to get the rare quest item drop. He'd hate to be one of the people who bothered to do this quest, and only ended up with the trash rewards. It wasn't very well-balanced, but they likely made this floor first and didn't think to fix it during the debug phase.

"Okay, pick up that quest, Kirito," Argo said, then turned around and stepped back out of town lines, "We're still partied up, so you'll get any cor and EXP from a monster I beat. So, I'm going to the wolf spawner that's right nearby. I'll be safe. Level three on level one... The EXP might at least push you over the edge to level four, though, before we meet back up."

"Thanks Argo," Kirito said, "Be safe, okay?"

"I always am," Argo said, then winked at Kirito, "I bet you never knew this, but during the beta, my HP didn't drop to zero even once. So I was already prepared for this sort of thing, you know? My build's not the best for clearing floors or fighting through dungeons. But it's damn good for survival. Claws are one of the best weapons for small mobs, and I've got great agility as a base stat. I'll see you soon, then!"

Before Kirito could even process Argo's statement, she was gone from view, leaving him there. The only player in this entire village. Not like that would last for very long, because the NPCs in the Town of Beginnings would start assigning a quest to come here to any player level five or above. Kirito made his way to the house that he knew assigned the quest he needed to focus on, and received it without any trouble.

There were a few others he could pick up here, too. The one which gave a full stack of cream came from a farmhouse out on the countryside, but there was a simple quest to collect a certain number of stingers from wasps in the forest, and another to kill the caterpillars that were eating all the herbs.

The caterpillar quest was easier, but it wasn’t like the wasps were hard either. This early in the game, there wouldn’t be any paralysis effects, which were what wasps would usually be equipped with. The caterpillars, meanwhile, did have the ability to inflict poison if you gave them the chance.

Kirito decided to go for the caterpillars, though. They were level three, which he could currently match, while the wasps were level four. As long as he was careful, he wouldn’t aggro multiple types of mobs at once and he could just focus in on the easier ones.

With that settled, he went to the forest, found an herb patch right at the edge of the trees, and started in on the caterpillar mobs. Fifteen of them would get him the quest. After two, he leveled to four, though that was also in part thanks to Argo’s efforts while he’d gathered the quests, which didn’t quite push him to the level up but got him close enough.

After five caterpillars total, Argo rejoined him, slicing up one of her own and adding to the quest total, but then they either had to find a new area or wait for the caterpillars to respawn. Kirito decided on the latter, relaxing his stance and turning to Argo, “Hey. Did you get the quests I picked up too?”

“Yeah, I did,” Argo said with a small nod, “I probably won’t ever get the quest item for the forest medicine, though, I’ll probably drop it. If it drops for me instead of you, I’ll just give it to you. The rewards for the caterpillar quest, I can also get. For the wasp quest, we’d have to kill double the number of them to get enough stingers…”

“That might help us level up enough to tackle the nepthes,” Kirito observed.

“Yeah, we need to be able to fight our way out if one of us manages to break a berry,” Argo agreed, putting her hands on her hips and taking a deep breath, “Though, I’ll never let you live it down if you do, you know. That’s a real idiot thing to do, if you know what happens.”

“So many new players are going to come up here, and not know…” Kirito sighed, looking away, “Do you think that they’ll be okay?”

“If enough of them come at once, then yeah,” Argo said, “There will be so many people trying to do the quest, that everything’ll get killed as soon as it spawns. Even if that isn’t the case, though, I think that anybody who bothers to do the research will be fine.”

“Not when the research costs so much-” Kirito started to say, but Argo fixed him with such a blank stare that he dropped it immediately, and the pair moved on. By the time they reached the point they were confident they could beat the nepthes, they were both level five, closing on six. And by the time that Kirito got the quest drop, he and Argo had both barely hit level six, and it took quite a few mobs to get there. Just showed how steep the level curve was.

With that quest completed, Argo looked to him, “Let’s go turn these quests in, so I can get the rewards that I’m due, and you can get your sword, and everything.”

“Yeah,” Kirito said, “And you can do whatever it is that you wanted to do at the printing press…”

“That’s right!” Argo agreed, “And then, I’m sorry, but I’ve got one more favor to ask you.”

“One more favor?” Kirito asked.

“Yeah,” Argo said, “I’ll tell you what it is in a little bit, though.”

Kirito sighed at that. Of course Argo was going to continue being mischievous about this, she was always like that, as far as he’d heard. It was weird to be working together with her now, when he hadn’t even bought any of her information during the beta test. He brushed it off, and they continued on to hand in the quests. Argo, armed with her rewards, ran to use the printing press while Kirito went for his anneal blade. Upon meeting back up with her, blade equipped and on his back, Kirito didn’t see anything she might have printed. At first.

Then, Argo opened her UI and initiated a trade with him. Giving people items with nothing in return didn’t require the receiver to accept the trade, and before Kirito knew it, he had ten stacks of 999… ‘field guides’.

“My second favor,” Argo said, “Is that you take those with you to Tolbana and give out as many as you can to whoever’s already there when you arrive. I’m going to take a bunch back to the town of beginnings and enlist some old friends of mine to hand them out, too. It’s all of the information I gathered during the beta. Every last bit. I put disclaimers on all the things that I know will probably be different. I guess, I’ll be hurting for cash for a bit, but it’s worth it. There’s always new stuff to discover and sell, anyway.”

“Argo-” Kirito started, but he wasn’t sure what to say.

“What?” Argo asked, turning to glare at him, “I mean, seriously. I said it’s not every man for himself. If I kept all of this to myself, then anyone who fell victim to a mob’s dumb trap, everyone who stumbled into a higher level area without a teleportation crystal… Their blood would be on my hands. If I am the one who knows everything, then this much is my responsibility. Anything after this, they better pay up! But I don’t want people to die either.”

“You’re a better person than the others made you seem, during the beta,” Kirito said, “I’ll do that, Argo. I’ll catch up to everyone who foolishly went on ahead, and I’ll share your wisdom with them.”

“I’ll keep an eye on you, Kirito,” Argo said, “You ever need anything… Well, you’ll still have to pay. But you’ll be a top priority client.”

“Thanks,” Kirito chuckled, “I’ll see you around, then, Argo.”

“Same to you.”


	2. Welcome To The World Of Swords: B-Side

Klein ran from the plaza the moment it was possible.

As soon as the mirrors were handed out, he had this sinking feeling, and while he didn’t usually count himself clever enough to make those sorts of connections, he made this one. He made this one and he got away from anybody who might see him and remember it. Anyone he’d already spoken to. He felt seriously awful to just ditch his newfound buddy Kirito like that, but at the same time, what could he really do? He couldn’t just let Kirito see what he really looked like. Not right away. This equipment lacked in something important to him, after all.

He could remedy that as soon as he was alone, of course, but he had to first make sure nobody who mattered actually witnessed him in his natural state, even if that meant disappearing without a word before it probably happened. He found a place in a corner, right by the invisible wall closing them into the town square, and that was when it happened. Klein regretted spending as much as he did on this game not when they became unable to log out, not when death was confirmed to be permanent, but when his body became like his real one and he lost the escapism that he’d had, and instead wished he’d saved that money to go towards surgery.

The virtual world had been his chance. His chance to have longer hair and less of a beard and a softer face, and still be read as male. A place where he didn’t actually need to hyper-perform masculinity to be acknowledged as the person that he was. And now, here he was. Himself again, standing there in ill-fitting beginners equipment, facing away from the crowd, to the point where… He didn’t catch sight of the others in the same boat as him. There weren’t a lot, in a group of ten thousand, but there were enough. Video game avatars were an escape for so many, an expression of themselves they couldn’t present in reality. Klein knew he was one of the lucky ones. At least his real body was partially transitioned. There were some who could only be themselves in a virtual world, and didn’t know what to do anymore. Of course, there were also plenty of players who just played as another gender for fun, and wouldn’t be seriously impacted by this. So, maybe Klein wasn’t a lucky one. Those were the lucky ones. He was just in the middle between lucky and unlucky.

As soon as the invisible wall dropped, Klein snuck off, before the shock set in to the others and they also started to disperse. Right now, so many people were still breaking down in the square, or trying to help those who were, or screaming at the space where Akihiko Kayaba had appeared, now gone. That gave him the opportunity to get to the inn and get himself a room. Once he was inside, the doors automatically locked to all outsiders, he shed the equipment which didn’t fit him, and took a deep breath. How was it that the VR was listed to work, when it came to injuries?

One’s HP could not deplete to zero in a safe zone unless engaged in a duel to zero. Severed limbs would reattach if put back together alongside the use of a healing crystal, but would not grow back. Should a limb be left detached, skin will eventually cover the injury’s area.

Those were the rules, right?

Klein thought, they were pretty much perfect for what he needed to do.

Pain became a thing as soon as Akihiko announced that dying here would mean death in the real world, so that was a bummer, but Klein figured he could handle some pain for the sake of this. Only in the virtual world would this be possible. He was tossed into his real body, sure, but nothing stopped him from modifying it now. He was sure people were going to dye their hair, at least, though that was much less drastic than his plan.

He had to stop thinking about it, he was just stalling himself. He took a deep breath, steadied his sword against his chest, charged a sword skill, and sliced down. He let out a cry of pain, but then it was over. It seemed the algorithm couldn’t, or wouldn’t actually recreate lingering pain if the hp bar wasn’t down low. That was good. He hoped nobody had heard him, but he felt freed. It was unlikely he would have been able to get ahold of a binder in this world, but he couldn’t just in go on like that either. Only in the virtual world could he perform a crude top surgery on himself and get away with it.

He took deep breaths, staring at the shiny red of inflicted damage that remained. He had no idea how long it would take before the system decided that he _wasn’t about to put them back on_ , but he did know that the injury effect would probably show through even with his equipment back on, so he couldn’t go out like this.

He pulled open his UI and sent a message out to his friends, ‘Hey, still kind of in shock over what happened. I think I should get some sleep. Meet up in the morning?”

It wasn’t completely a lie, anyway.

All the responses he got were understanding, though it wasn’t as if he expected any differently. He made a habit of keeping good friends, even if he would prefer to let them think that nobody had ever thought of him as a woman. It was nice to be able to be stealth if the opportunity arose… And he’d made his own opportunity here in Aincrad, when the original opportunity curled up and died right before his eyes.

It _was_ pretty horrifying, that they were trapped here now, the permanence of death that was being inflicted upon them in a world far more dangerous than their own… But Klein was pretty sure that he could handle it. He’d run an active guild in the last MMO he played, and his friendships here had actually been initially forged in that game. He trusted in his own abilities, and those of his friends. He wasn’t going to hide and he knew they wouldn’t either. Even if it cost them their lives, he was part of a group of people who wouldn’t give up, who would work together for the good of everyone.

One hundred floors… That had seemed like a perfectly reasonable number of zones for an MMO, designed to have playability for years upon years, but as something that actually mattered, as a real challenge with tangible consequences, it seemed insurmountable. He’d heard exclamations in the plaza of disbelief, of wondering how they could possibly complete that many floors. Klein didn’t know how much he could actually do to help with clearing the game, but he did know that more safe zones would open up as the game expanded, so at least each bit of progress also served as an improvement in quality of life for everybody.

Klein wouldn’t have been surprised if nobody wanted to actually play, even with the threat that going a full year without clearing a floor would cause floors to start being vanquished from existence. As it was, however, it seemed that a good number of the players had every intention of being involved in the effort to clear the floors and escape the game. Or, if lacking in that level of confidence, at least to play and make some effort to become stronger and progress, and not to stay hiding in the starter town out of fear. Humans were a truly resilient bunch, and even the threat of death wouldn’t throttle the motivation of most.

In the morning, he’d get started.

In the morning, he’d commit to this new life.

\----

There was a big difference between Asuna Yuuki and this, new Asuna. This Asuna that she now found herself, this Asuna who had, until that moment, appeared nothing at all like Asuna Yuuki. This Asuna who would eventually need to log out, this Asuna who, knowing her luck, would stay in Aincrad forever as the Nervegear began to gather dust in a locked closet.

Now, this Asuna would stay in Aincrad. And so would Asuna Yuuki. Because now, this blue-haired, long-nosed, white-eyed Asuna looked exactly like her. And now, there was no logging out. Her mother would have ripped the Nervegear from her head if not for the widespread knowledge now that it would be the death of her if such a thing was done. Kyoko Yuuki did care, with her rotten way of showing it. She would never act to knowingly cause her daughter’s death, no matter how angry she might feel.

But Asuna might.

It took a certain amount of courage to die, she thought. A certain level of bravery. It took the bravery to take that step, and the cowardice to want to do it in the first place. There was something different about this place though, wasn't there? Asuna knew that dying here would be permanent. She had no proof of that, but she saw no reason to doubt Akihiko's words. It was real death, but it didn't feel that way.

It felt like Asuna could actually get away with dying here. Like even if she took matters into her own hands, then she wouldn't be to blame for it. Like she wouldn't be disappointing her mother one last time, like nobody whose fault it was would have to feel guilt. She didn't want to make anybody feel guilty. It was her problem that she blamed them for the way she felt, and she wouldn't want to push that problem onto anybody else.

If she died here, though, would anybody even know the method? Would anyone ever even have a second thought? In Aincrad, she wouldn't feel the pressure of leaving behind a note. In Aincrad, nobody would think that they had any hand in her death. Asuna didn't want to go out meaning anything to anyone. Aincrad was the way to do that, wasn't it?

It wasn't like she was horrified by the idea of being trapped here. Rather, she'd always been horrified by the idea of living any longer. This was just an opportunity. Asuna knew that her health couldn't drop to zero in a safe zone, and it would probably be a few days before any of the mob spawners were actually empty enough that she could let herself get killed without somebody stepping in to help. She'd be able to eventually, though, that was what she thought. What she thought right up until she witnessed another option.

It seemed as if there was no returning from the edge of Aincrad.

Four or five people, she saw, managed to use the shock factor to do it before they could be stopped by the surrounding crowds. Of course, after that, everybody became more aware of the situation... Even so, the crowds dispersed as it started to get dark, and on the final hour of the evening, Asuna saw her chance to join them. To join the ones who succeeded at first, because now the streets were nearly empty and her heart was emptier still. She'd never been this resolute before. Nobody would have to know, or blame themselves, and she could get away. She could escape, everything. Video games were a temporary escape, but through them, she'd finally found a permanent one.

Asuna climbed up onto the wall, and she stared out. The edge of Aincrad. Rolling clouds below her, and nothing else at all. There wasn't anything there. She would simply vanish, she'd be gone. The only person who could ever feel guilty would be her brother for lending her the console, giving her the means to turn up dead in her home, brain microwaved, fried to bits. She took a deep breath, and lifted her foot, and-

She fell backwards. There was a hand around her wrist, and then there wasn't, and she fell until she hit the cobblestones, breath knocked out of her. Her health took a small hit which would immediately regenerate given the safe zone, and she stared up at another sky. A different sky from the rolling one she had been about to hurl herself into, and she took a breath, and she wondered what had happened.

Then, a private message notifier appeared in her UI, and her unhelpful rescuer spoke, only for her ears, "You're... Asuna Yuuki, right?"

"Why does it matter to you?" Asuna asked, without moving.

"Because I met you before," Diavel answered, "In the real world. That's how I know your full name. You probably don't remember me, though."

"Mm?" Asuna questioned, turning her head to look at him now and finding that she did recognize him, "Oh... Daichi. It's you."

Asuna definitely remembered Daichi Nomura. She wasn't in the habit of remembering the suitors that her mother tried to line her up with, but Daichi was one of the only ones who actually heard when Asuna said she wasn't really interested in anything like marriage yet, which was always her mother's goal with these guys. It was only by Asuna's stubbornness that she was permitted the 'opportunity' to date these suitors for one week and make up her mind if she was okay with being promised to them. Most of her suitors took this week to do whatever they wanted with, or to, her. Daichi didn't, and so she'd taken the opportunity to complain to him about it all. They'd parted ways on good terms, but didn't keep in touch.

"Yeah, Asuna," Diavel said, chuckling under his breath, "It's me. What the Hell were you trying to do there anyway?"

"What do you think?" Asuna asked, "But, I guess, thanks for pulling me down the way you did. If you'd pulled me down and caught me, or something, I probably would have already stood up to try again."

"How long have you felt this way?" Diavel questioned.

"My whole life, wouldn't you?" Asuna said, "But I never wanted to make anyone feel like they were getting blamed, and I guess I was a coward, and all sorts of things like that, you know? I figured this was an opportunity to stop, without hurting people."

"That's stupid," Diavel said, "You played this game for a reason, right? You could help people, by continuing to play. I'm not going to try and say that you should really try to stay alive, I know you wouldn't want to hear that right now. But if you're going to go down, at least go down fighting."

"I don't want to keep going and get hurt again," Asuna admitted, but sat up, "I'm tired of it."

Diavel just smiled at her, "I'll let you in on a little secret. Even though this is a virtual reality, it has forbidden actions, just like any other video game. There's actually a morality code in play, which is really quite strict. Look at this," He reached toward her waist, but came up against an invisible wall instead, his hand pressed against it inches away from her, "It's hooked into our minds and everything. Unless both parties want the contact to occur, or circumstance requires it, there are very few parts of the body that can actually be touched by another player's hands. Weapons are obviously another matter, but, the point is... Nothing's going to happen to you. For the first time, you're safe."

"Wow. I couldn't have found this out sooner?" Asuna said, fighting to keep the weakness and frustration out of her voice, "Are you kidding me? A world where I can't be touched unless I want to be... I'd want to live as long as possible, in a world like that. There's a point to trying, in that world."

"Good thing I told you about it, huh?" Diavel said.

"Yeah," Asuna admitted, getting to her feet, and Diavel did as well, "I'll... See you around. Thanks. Bye."

And she walked away.

She knew the polite thing probably would have been to stick around, but she felt embarrassed by that scenario, she felt like now that she knew that, she'd made a mistake, and she didn't want to be around the people who'd witnessed her making that mistake. She wandered away, making her way back to the inn where she'd spent the day, her purchase of a room there still good till the following midday. The innkeeper, a friendly NPC, tried to speak to her on her way upstairs, but she paid him no mind. Again, not the polite thing to do. Again, what she had to do for her own still-fragile mental state. Besides, it wasn't like a single NPC would remember being ignored by a suicidal player. At the end of the day, he'd recall players who were rude, players who were rambunctious, but he wouldn't remember seeing her almost jump.

He'd remember the ones who did.

And, Asuna decided, she was now okay with that. She didn't need to be memorable to him. She didn't feel regret that Diavel stopped her, but she didn't feel relief over that fact either. Rather, she did feel relieved about the information Diavel had given her. It wasn't a comfort to know she could have died today and didn't, but at the same time, it wasn't an unpleasant feeling. She was armed with the knowledge she needed for a world like this. She couldn't be hurt again. She wouldn't be hurt again. Even so, there was a creeping dread at the same time. Diavel recognized her. Diavel was Daichi Nomura. If he, one of the only good men she'd met in her waking life, was here and had found her... Who was to say that any score of those many bad men weren't present as well? They couldn't touch her, but that didn't mean they couldn't do harm in other ways.

Words and rumors were effective weapons as well, and Asuna here looking the same as Asuna Yuuki out there, could easily become a target for such things. She needed to move on from this basic gear, but in a very particular way. She needed a cloak. She knew those existed in the game, she'd witnessed some people already having purchased them somewhere in town. Even one blur of a player decked out in one that seemed of a higher level than anyone ought to yet afford, though perhaps that one had just poured all their cor into a single coat.

Asuna didn't need anything fancy like that, even the flimsiest looking of cloaks had hoods long enough to obscure the wearer's face. Not to mention, her hair. It was a really distinct style and color... The style was important to her, though, the reason why she didn't change it when she was this Asuna only, and her hair could be a cotton candy blue. She supposed there was dye, but with hair this long, she didn't know if it would even work. For her, cutting it was an option she wouldn't even begin to entertain. As much as it made her stand out, she'd been growing her hair out since she was five years old, only chopping the split ends to keep it growing. To chop it short, even in a virtual setting, would be making a ruin of one of the only things she bothered to cherish. And, when there was the possibility that the hospital out in the real world would cut it while she was comatose, she was just that more loathe to part with the bits of data that made up her flowing strands.

She thought it was kind of dumb of her to think this way, but as long as nobody else ever knew, did that matter? It was something to hold onto. So, her best option really was to hide her identity in a cloak. She took a deep breath, then lay down on her rented bed in her starter gear, only to sit back up, staring down at herself with an annoyed glare. This was... Not comfortable, she couldn't sleep in leather armor. Especially not leather armor that was just generated today and hadn't honestly been broken in yet. At the same time, she didn't want to go out again, and even if she could, she knew that casual clothing in MMOs almost always cost more than anything with an actual armor rating on it. Cosmetic items, but in a virtual world, cosmetic items had an actual use. Frowning, she pulled open the equipment menu, and luckily, discovered that it was made up of layers. The shirt wasn't all one piece, and she could unequip the armor bit while leaving behind the linen underlayer. It still wasn't especially comfortable, being starter equipment and all, but at least she wouldn't have to sleep in her underwear.

Even with the knowledge she'd acquired, well, she wasn't sure she'd be okay with that just yet. Dressed now in a linen shirt and matching pants, the rest of her equipment safe in her inventory. She crawled under the blankets of the bed, and while she wasn't comfortable, she had the exhaustion of her near-death experience to drive her to sleep. Even if it was a self-inflicted attempt on her life, it was still tiring. It would have to be for anybody. In the morning, she would deal with going to the stores that she needed to. For now, sleep.

\---

Rika Shinozaki was a veteran of these types of games, although, she didn't actually tend to partake much in the combat. She was a junkie for crafting in games, and she was a craftswoman in real life, too. Admittedly, in real life she didn't really have access to anything like a forge, but she still took part in small-scale metalworking projects when she got the chance. Her dad thought it wasn't ladylike, but supported her in her efforts unconditionally. She figured, either he didn't care and complained about the lack of propriety to keep up appearances, or he'd wanted a son anyway and embraced his daughter's son-like qualities where he could find them. Whichever it was didn't matter to her, since it gave her free reign to build her skills.

And, in MMOs, Rika always leveled up her crafting skills. She was an early adopter, and while she was never the sort to use crafting to slingshot to be the first at a high level, she did utilize the same tactics, staying in town and crafting while she had other people gathering materials for her. MMOs made crafting worthwhile anyway, by making high level crafted items worth quite a bit more than the raw materials, and usually better than drops or merchant items in the same level range. She always paid back her helpers as soon as her skills were enough to hit that profitable range, not to mention the free weapons and armor they got to aid in their gathering endeavors. When Rika heard about a new MMO, with crafting trees, in virtual reality? She couldn't turn down the chance to actually hold a hammer to a hot piece of metal and forge a sword, even if it was all a faked sensation. So she made her character, Lisbeth, the up-and-coming blacksmith.

That was how she ended up here. At first, of course she panicked, but she got ahold of herself fairly quickly and immediately set her usual business model into action. She ran up to a couple who'd got in a small argument when the mirrors first revealed their appearances, "Hey, you guys, um. Do you think that I could ask a favor of the both of you? I mean, I know you were just arguing, but it really seems to me like you'd work well together!"

"Huh?" The one in pink asked, then scratched the side of his cheek and glanced away, "I mean, maybe. It's not like I didn't like this guy before... Chemistry doesn't just disappear."

"What's that all about? You know I'm a guy, right?" The one in yellow questioned.

The other sighed, "Obviously! It's just, I play as a girl in games like these to get guys to talk to me. I know it's a dirty tactic, but it's hard for a guy like me out here! I don't really care that you're older than you said, but you were so shocked, I had to figure out something to counter with, uh-"

"I thought so," Lisbeth said, pressing her hands together, "Um, it's weird to just admit something like this, but I like girls! So, in an act of solidarity, could you help a girl out?"

"Huh? Well," The guy in yellow seemed to completely move on, turning his attention to Lisbeth, "That depends on what you want us to help you with."

"Us?" The guy in pink asked, happy surprise in his voice.

"See," Lisbeth explained, "I'm the crafting type. Smithing, to be exact. I'd really like to build my skill up enough by tomorrow to start selling some better swords than the merchants can. Now, nobody has the plate armor equip skill yet, so I'll focus on weaponry... If you help me out, you get your choice of weaponry free of charge, of course! The thing is just that I can't really go out gathering _and_ speed-level my smithing skill. So I need some gatherers."

"We can do it!" Yellow guy said.

"And we can probably recruit some others to do it too, with the promise of better weapons for free," Pink guy agreed, "Let's party up, the three of us, so that you get some of the EXP if we end up needing to fight anything while we're gathering."

"Okay," Lisbeth said, "But you can keep the cor, since that gets split evenly, I don't really need it. Consider it extra payment from me. If you can get two others and go in shifts, I should definitely be able to make at least rare-qualities by tomorrow. I already researched the crafting tree before the big announcement happened."

"How good are those?" Pink Guy asked.

"The merchants in this town only sell Normals, so a step up from that. Above Rare, there's Rare-Rare, Super Rare, Super-Super Rare, Ultra Rare, and S-Class. S-Class is kind of unreasonable to ever dream about crafting, though. There's one S-Class craftable for each variety of weapon in the game, but it requires a ton of materials, most of them rare or higher, and to keep track of crafting several other items that go into the final product. You're more likely to stumble upon an S-Class weapon as a monster drop than to find one made by a blacksmith," Lisbeth explained, "Once I hit rare, I won't keep asking you for help, but if you did keep helping me, of course you'd still get free stuff. You _could_ be the first players to equip RR quality plate mail, once the skill's available..."

"That sounds like a pretty good deal," Yellow guy said, "What do you think, Yunaa?"

So that was the pink guy's username. He responded, "I mean, yeah. It kind of seems too good to be true. Why should we get such a great opportunity?"

"I told you already," Lisbeth said, grinning, "It's solidarity, isn't it? We need to stick together! Anyway, I'm going to find the crafting zone, just report back to me when your inventories start filling up."

"Of course," Yunaa said, then opened his GUI and sent her a party request. She accepted, and learned that the yellow guy's username was... MrGoo. Okay, she supposed that not all usernames had to function as names. It just seemed a little strange to see that type of username in a virtual world MMO. Then again, some people probably never bothered to name their toons anything else. Plus, this was a guy who resolved his own sexuality crisis in no time at all, so Lisbeth had to give MrGoo some respect.

"I'll see you guys soon! Thank you so much!" Lisbeth called after them as they went back out towards the field, waving as they went. She smiled to herself, glad that she could come to an agreement that was really good for her, but also for her newfound friends. They probably understood that getting into agreements like this with crafting players was usually a very good idea, not to mention, there was that gay slash lesbian solidarity thing that she'd brought up. Usually, Lisbeth didn't like to wear her sexuality on her sleeve like that, but she could tell when it would be advantageous to her. Plus, it wouldn't have any repercussions in her old life, and the thing was, she had to admit... Befriending straight people was a lot harder than befriending fellow gays. It was just, like, they were on the same wavelength and automatically hit it off, if they shared that one label amongst their whole human experiences. It was a phenomenon, sure, but Lisbeth appreciated it in this case.

Maybe she'd end up known throughout Aincrad as the lesbian blacksmith? No... Not likely. She wasn't a walking stereotype by any means, and it wasn't likely that people would be assuming heterosexuality of female blacksmiths anyway, just as they wouldn't expect heterosexuality of a male tailor. Not to say that those people didn't exist, but it wasn't the assumption that strangers would make.

Lisbeth walked back to the crafting areas, which she did already know about. Unlike most games' crafting zones, this one actually required her to rent a room which included a forge. It probably would be strange to work out the logistics of letting multiple players try to use the same crafting station at once. She used what cor she had to rent the room, which was at a higher rate than a basic inn room, but it guaranteed her a full twenty-four hours of a safe room and forge use. She'd actually, prior to this being proclaimed a death game, done a bit of her own mining, so she was able to start grabbing some points from small things. A hilt here, a dagger blade there. She'd level with the little stuff, which didn't take as many resources, because people probably wouldn't want to pay anything for normal quality weaponry from her when they could find the same from any NPC dealer. She'd reserve the normal qualities to either salvage if that was an unlockable skill, or give as gifts to those who needed them.

Yunaa and MrGoo returned with the first batch of raw materials within an hour and a half, transfering to her inventory, quite a bit of material. Likely enough to keep her busy almost until they returned again, actually. Better than she expected of the two of them, and Yunaa explained, "Nobody's bothering with any of the gathering nodes around the world yet, like, at all. They're focusing on getting the hang of combat... MrGoo and I were able to recruit some more players though! Four of them, actually, so we couldn't party up, but they should be stopping by with some stuff later. They've got a woodworker in their party, too, so we're all using the tree gathering nodes too. Hope that's okay?"

"Of course it is," Lisbeth said, "Actually, I'm surprised! This stuff you brought me should keep me busy for another hour, alone... Who's this other party you met? Tell me about them."

"Two girls, two guys," MrGoo explained, "Three of them, all basically fawning over one of the girls. Fifteen but looks twelve, pigtails, you know. The kind of girl you just want to scoop up and protect. The other girl's the woodworker, cause Silica says she hopes to class into beastmaster if it exists in this game. And the guys just want to put skill points into sword skills, not crafting ones, for now. Pretty capable already, though. They've both played other Nervegear games before."

"Cool, you added them to your friends list, right?" Lisbeth asked.

"Yeah, of course," Yunaa said.

"Do you guys, and find out about them too, want a different weapon type? It won't be any higher quality yet, but I'm sure some of you would prefer something other than a one-handed sword, right?" Lisbeth offered, "I can equip the two of you before you head out again, and equip the other group when they get back, just get me the orders!"

"Sure thing," Mrgoo said, pulling up his UI and sending out the messages, "You able to make anything other than swords yet? I'd kind of like to play with a mace, if that's possible."

"And I'm okay with the one-handed sword," Yunaa said, "But is there any way you could hook me up with a shield?"

"Yeah, I think I could pull that off for you," Lisbeth said, then turned back to her anvil. Her crafting menu was much bigger now just by virtue of having _so much_ raw material in her inventory; The shield took quite a bit of it. She set to work as quickly as possible, crafting the needed parts and combining them until she came up with the requested weapons, which she handed over, then noticed something as her crafting menu was still open, "Hey, it's still a _while_ till I can make an R quality weapon, but I can make R rings with some pretty decent stats on them. They require R gemstones from the mining nodes, but you did get me uh... Four of those! I can make you each a ring, and if the other group brings two more gems, I'll be able to give them all rings too. They're +3 defense _and_ attack power!"

"Whoa," Mrgoo said, "That'll probably turn out pretty useless in higher levels, but it's a serious boost right now."

"Isn't it?" Lisbeth said, "I'll probably hit level three soon, too, and then I can start spending skill points."

"Huh, we're nearly to level three ourselves," Yunaa said, "I guess maybe even though we're in the same party, you don't get our battle experience while you're in town?"

"Hm, or I just get a tiny fraction," Lisbeth said, "I don't think I've done enough crafting to get me this close to level three... Gathering nodes give you EXP too, though, don't they?"

"Oh, right," MrGoo said, "So maybe we just didn't get all that much battle EXP to start with, and we got it from gathering while you got it from crafting?"

"That would make sense," Lisbeth said, then turned and crafted two rings, handing them over as well, "Anyway, here you go! I hope that these help you out."

"Thanks! Oh, also," MrGoo said, with a slight start, "We found out from the other group, you have to eat. That's why the ration items that seemed useless at first exist. Virtual food sates virtual hunger, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was also virtual starvation. And, sleeping is probably also needed."

"I did factor in sleeping," Lisbeth said, "Assuming I get eight hours, we still have another four before I'd have to sleep to wake up early enough to start selling R weapons."

"That's good," MrGoo said, "Anyway, me and Yunaa will get back to work, Lisbeth! Thanks for the equipment!"

"Anytime," Lisbeth said, waving as her friends went on their way. And with that, she turned her attention back to the forge, busying herself with improving her smithing skill. After she'd put together a few more basic weapons, she hit level three, and opened her GUI to the skills menu. She switched from the combat menu to the crafting menu, then noted there was one more skill menu, which she flipped over to quickly. It was titled the 'lifestyle' menu, and had some very interesting skills there. The one that stood out to her was the merchant skill, but it definitely wasn't for her. It swapped the natural ability to sell any item that a player has crafted with the ability to buy and sell miscellaneous items. That was the skill for those who wanted to run things like swap shops, or to sell crafting materials or monster drops. Lisbeth would stay away from that, all she needed to sell was her own creations. Still, if selling off items was actually a skill now...

The economy of this game really was different from other MMOs. The buy bit of that skill meant buying from anyone, so it basically boiled down to, the players had to take these things into their own hands. Certain players had to become merchants who would buy people's junk, then sell it back to the people who wanted that junk. Of course, to actually make a living doing that, there would have to be a steady supply of said items to sell... Lisbeth got to thinking. She had her gathering team, and it was already growing. One of them was a woodworker too. Wouldn't it make sense, to form a trade guild? Gatherers, and crafters, and merchants working together with each other for everybody involved's benefit. Lisbeth didn't know how to go about putting something like that together, but she did think that it would make sense.

Ignoring that, she picked up the first in the smithing skill tree, the 'augment health crystal' skill. It allowed her, when forging, to include a health crystal and give the weapon regenerative abilities while equipped. She had the starter crystals on hand, so she decided that the weapons she made for her friends when she hit R quality should have that augmentation. It was the least she could do, for all their help. Soon enough she got the requests from the other group, prepared the weapons, and handed them over when she met the four of them. Rings too, since they did bring her enough gemstones for that. She stayed up a little longer, unlocked R weapons crafting, and made up a whole bunch of them to sell before she turned in for the night.

Yunaa and MrGoo met back up with Lisbeth in the morning, and helped her sort out renting a booth down in the shops district of the Town of Beginnings. She definitely didn't want to stick around here, certain that she could get an actual, nice building somewhere else as the game progressed. For now, though, this was perfect. As soon as people started milling about, Lisbeth got to calling out, announcing the fact that she had nice, rare items for sale here at her booth. This got her some good business, as she expected; The shops district was hopping, because she was selling rare weapons, a leatherworker was selling rare armor, and a tailor was offering a free casual outfit to anybody who could bring enough jute scraps to make it. Those items were dropped by the small kobold soldiers that had no set spawn point, wandering around the first floor as a warning of the boss fight that awaited at the end of the floor's labyrinth. Plenty of people already had enough jute for the deal, if they'd spent the previous evening getting their bearings on combat.

Lisbeth didn't, but that was fine for her. Jute wasn't much more comfortable than linen anyway. Tailored jute would of course be less scratchy than armor linen, and it would look cute, but she didn't need that. She'd wait for cotton, whichever tier of crafting that was in this game. The morning was very busy, then business tapered off as the day went along and everyone, now better-equipped than the day before, set off to fight more monsters. By the time the sun was beginning to set, Lisbeth had made a ton of money, sold a ton of weapons, and there was basically nobody left in the shopping district. She was about to start packing up shop when she saw someone walk down the path, rather slowly, in a thin but concealing cloak. She decided to call out, "Hey! You looking to upgrade your weapon?"

"Ah?" The person in the cloak sounded surprised, then turned and approached the booth, "I... Well, maybe tomorrow. I'm not sure I have enough cor on me to buy a room at the inn _and_ a weapon. You, will be back tomorrow, won't you?"

"Yeah, I will," Lisbeth said, then leaned over her booth, hands framing the array of weaponry, "But, do you wanna try one out anyway? Just to get a feel for what you might want to use, if you're not so much a fan of the one-handed sword!"

"Oh! Can I really?" The cloaked figure's voice became, with that surprise, very clearly feminine, and Lisbeth found herself thinking that it was a cute voice, too. God, how much of a disaster could she be, building a crush on somebody whose face she hadn't even seen?

"Of course," Lisbeth said, "Just pick something up and give it a swing! There's plenty of space here, now that everyone's out in the field for the day."

"I didn't go in the field yesterday at all," The cloaked girl admitted, "So I had to do that first thing today, in order to make enough money to stay at the inn again tonight."

"Nothing wrong with getting a slow start! If you needed that time to gather your thoughts, then it shouldn't be a penalty to you or anything," Lisbeth assured her, "Hey, what's your username, anyway?"

"...Asuna," Asuna answered, reaching out for the dagger on display, "Yours?"

"I'm Lisbeth," Lisbeth said, watching as Asuna tried operating the dagger, only to find that she didn't like the lack of reach and set it down. She continued on to try a mace and a broadsword, to similar results, before lifting a rapier. She gave it a few test swings, and on activating one of its swords skills, moved so quickly that her cloak was jostled from her head, falling down to reveal her face, and good grief, why this, Lisbeth was just about immediately smitten. Instead, though, she just said, "It seems like that sort of weapon suits you!"

"It does... Ah!" She realized with a start that her hood had fallen down, and brought it back up.

Rather than push the matter of why it was so important for this beautiful girl to keep her face hidden, Lisbeth just offered a solution, "The tailor down there could probably add a drawstring to that for you, so it doesn't fall down as easily. So, you like the rapier?"

"It's fast, and really precise," Asuna said, holding the weapon in both hands now, one on the hilt and the other supporting the blade as she looked over it, "Um... Just, how much, would it be to buy one of these?"

"If you can only just afford the inn tonight, you can't afford it and a rare-quality weapon," Lisbeth said simply, "But the one you're holding right now is N quality. You could buy that from any old merchant in town, and I just made it to build up my skill, so," She turned away, picking at her fingernails as if she didn't care, "You can have it."

"Really?" Asuna asked.

"Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't sell N quality stuff," Lisbeth said, "In fact, I could even make that thing a little better for you, if you have an extra health crystal on you. I can augment it to your sword so that it regenerates your HP while equipped. It's not a strong regeneration, and you'll definitely still want to grab an R quality sword at your first opportunity, but this could get you started out. Then, you can wait for a good sword to drop from a monster, or come buy one from me! Though, I guess it's not totally free, this thing. If you find any interesting ores or gemstones, run them by me before you go selling them to a merchant."

"How will I find you, though? I bet you won't be staying here very long..." Asuna mumbled, "If you're already this good at smithing, I'm sure you'll want to move forward..."

"I'll add you to my friends list, Asuna," Lisbeth said, then reached her hands out, "So? Crystal and sword?"

"Right," Asuna said, handing both over. Lisbeth returned a moment later and handed her the sword, now with a glimmering red crystal in place of its original metal pommel, "Ah, thank you so much..."

"Don't worry about it!" Lisbeth said, waving it off with that bright smile still on her face, "Just make sure you come and find me again sometime!"


End file.
